Capital Punishment and the Brutality of Class Rule in America

‘The latest abomination in a US death chamber took place on Tuesday night in Missouri when Cecil Clayton, 74, was injected and killed with a single dose of pentobarbital. The condemned inmate was executed despite overwhelming evidence of his intellectual disability.

In 1972, Clayton was working in a lumberyard when a piece of wood broke off the sawmill and struck him in the head. Surgeons were forced to excise a fifth of his frontal lobe—the area of the brain that controls judgment, inhibition and impulsive behavior—to remove shards of bone that had pierced deep into his brain.

The accident had a shattering impact on Clayton’s life. The former devoted husband and father developed severe memory loss and began to suffer from hallucinations and paranoia.’

Read more: Capital Punishment and the Brutality of Class Rule in America